A high-speed signal transmitted from a transmitter to a receiver typically experiences distortion. To compensate for expected distortion, the transmitter may equalize the signal using a multi-tap equalizing filter. For example, the transmitter may include a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter. Typically the FIR filter may include the conversion of the parallel input data into a single high-speed serial data stream. FIR filter may also include multiple delay elements and a number of large-scale drivers for converting the serial data to the analog output current and generating a weighted sum of the multiple delayed versions of the serial data stream.
Because large-scale drivers for each tap are typically designed to handle one hundred percent of the estimated output current of the high-speed signal, however, portions of each large-scale driver may not be used. Accordingly, the large-scale drivers may be over designed and inefficient. Because large-scale drivers introduce capacitance into the multiple delayed versions of the serial data stream and slow output signal transition, the performance of the equalizing filter may be degraded. This performance degradation becomes more significant for filters with a large number of taps which must compensate for a large amount of distortion. Accordingly, known techniques for equalizing a signal may be unsatisfactory in certain situations.